[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 67 (Monday, April 25, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




HONORING MS. KaYING YANG ON HER APPOINTMENT TO THE PRESIDENT'S ADVISORY 
 COMMISSION ON ASIAN AMERICANS, NATIVE HAWAIIANS, AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BETTY McCOLLUM

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 25, 2022

  Ms. McCOLLUM. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my constituent Ms. 
KaYing Yang for being appointed to the President's Advisory Commission 
on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders by 
President Joseph R. Biden. On February 14, 2022, Ms. Yang was sworn in 
as one of 25 commissioners, bringing a variety of personal and 
professional experience and expertise to the President's commission.
  The daughter of May Yia Yang, a farm girl, and Chia Chu Yang, who was 
a Lieutenant Colonel in the CIA's Special Guerilla Unit (SGU) during 
the Secret War in Laos, Ms. Yang was among the first Hmong women to 
graduate from college in the United States in the mid-1980s. She earned 
her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. For 
more than two decades, Ms. Yang has been a passionate advocate for 
social justice who has built and led campaigns to address community 
issues locally, nationally and globally including her very important 
work to support gender equity, education opportunity, and advocacy for 
refugee families.
  When she was just 25 years old, Ms. Yang became the executive 
director of the Women's Association of Hmong and Lao (WAHL), one of the 
first two women's organizations founded by Hmong-American women in 
Minnesota. Later she served as executive director of the Southeast Asia 
Resource Action Center (SEARAC), the oldest national advocacy 
organization for refugees who resettled in the United States from 
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam after 1975. During this time Ms. Yang worked 
with various international development groups in Laos including the 
International Organization for Migration (IOM) to resettle 15,000 Hmong 
refugees to the United States and other countries, and later aided 
Karen refugees with resettlement on the Thai-Burma border.
  In 2008, she began working for the International Finance Corporation 
(IFC) to advance policies to improve the investment climate for private 
sector investment in Laos. While in Laos, she founded the first Hmong 
women's organization to ensure development resources reached minority 
women and people who moved from remote areas to urban areas.
  After her return to Minnesota, Ms. Yang worked for the Coalition of 
Asian American Leaders (CAAL), and led a broad cross-racial coalition 
to pass the All Kids Count Act in Minnesota in 2016, a bill which 
requires that students' ethnicity be included in data collected to 
enable policy makers to direct resources to the most impacted 
communities. She was also instrumental to passing legislation in 2017 
that created a nonprofit grant program for small nonprofits led by 
leaders of color that serve historically underserved communities.
  Ms. Yang and her fellow commissioners advise the President on ways 
the public, private, and non-profit sectors can work together to 
advance equity and opportunity for every AANHPI community. The 
Commission also advises on policies to address anti-Asian hate, 
xenophobia and violence--timely work given the recent rise in violence 
against our Asian-American neighbors. Further, they will find ways to 
build capacity in AANHPI communities through federal grantmaking and 
policies to address barriers facing AANHPI women, LGBTQ+ people, and 
people with limited English proficiency and disabilities.
  Madam Speaker, please join me in recognizing the phenomenal work Ms. 
KaYing Yang and congratulating her on this appointment to the 
President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, 
and Pacific Islanders. Since finding refuge with her family in America 
at the age of 7, Ms. Yang has exhibited outstanding devotion to 
improving the lives of members of the Hmong and Asian-American 
communities.

                          ____________________